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Jury Acquits Mobster in ’97 Killing of Officer

A former consigliere of the Colombo crime family was acquitted on Tuesday of the 1997 murder of a New York police officer. It was the second time a federal jury rejected arguments from prosecutors that leaders of the crime family ordered the killing.

Prosecutors argued during a two-week trial that the consigliere, Joel Cacace, ordered the murder because he was jealous that the officer, Ralph C. Dols, married his ex-wife — so jealous that he ignored a longtime Mafia code that prohibits killing members of law enforcement.

The government’s case relied on the testimony from two confessed killers who said they ambushed Officer Dols outside his home with gunfire on an order from Mr. Cacace, delivered through the Colombo chain of command.

But lawyers for Mr. Cacace (pronounced kuh-CASE) argued throughout the trial that the witnesses, Dino Calabro and Joseph Competiello, were pathological liars who implicated Mr. Cacace to try to gain leniency from prosecutors in their own cases. Each has pleaded guilty to killing multiple people in the 1990s, and they face life in prison if prosecutors do not successfully intervene on their behalf.

Outside the courtroom, Mr. Cacace’s family was jubilant. “I’m glad they got the right answer,” said Steve Cacace, his son. “The truth prevailed.”

The verdict leaves unresolved one of the more perplexing murder cases with suspected mob ties from the 1990s. Officer Dols was found shot in his driveway on Aug. 25, 1997. Suspicions quickly turned to Mr. Cacace because of the connection to his ex-wife, Kim Kennaugh, although there were also reported suspicions that Officer Dols, a workout buff, was involved in the sale of steroids.

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The murder inquiry went nowhere until 2008, when Mr. Calabro was arrested and began cooperating with the government. Charges against Mr. Cacace soon followed.

Another Colombo mobster, Thomas Gioeli, previously went to trial on murder and racketeering charges; prosecutors said he managed the people who carried out the killing and relayed the orders from Mr. Cacace. A jury rejected the testimony of Mr. Calabro and Mr. Competiello in that case; Mr. Gioeli was acquitted of the murder but found guilty of racketeering.

In Mr. Cacace’s case, the government needed to prove two elements of the crime to win the conviction: that the cooperating witnesses, Mr. Calabro and Mr. Competiello, killed Officer Dols, as they said they did; and that they had done so at the order of Mr. Cacace. In closing arguments on Monday, Allon Lifshitz, a prosecutor, presented little evidence to corroborate the accounts that Mr. Cacace ordered the killing. He instead called on jurors to “use your common sense” and make inferences from other evidence.

Another prosecutor, James Gatta, said in a closing argument: “If they did it, then Joel Cacace is guilty. There is no other reason that those men would have done it.”

But Mr. Cacace’s lawyer, Susan Kellman, continually questioned the reliability of Mr. Calabro and Mr. Competiello. “The government tells you to listen to these people,” she said to the jury on Monday. “Joel Cacace had no idea these lunatics were out there killing.”

A version of this article appears in print on November 27, 2013, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Jury Acquits Mobster in ’97 Killing of Officer. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe